Truth and Revival (part 6)

The above image is very powerful because of the truth it conveys.  When in the Upper Room, on the day of Pentecost, "there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them" (Acts 2:3); not only must it have been the case that each of those individuals (men and women alike) then enjoyed a much deeper sense of his or her approval unto God.  But they could furthermore observe that everyone gathered in that room, all of whom had faithfully obeyed Christ's command to "tarry in Jerusalem until..," also bore the sign of God's approval.  From that day and forward, those disciples of Christ carried in their lives the reality of the presence and power of the Holy Ghost.  Moreover, they carried with them in their conscience the memory of the sign of God's approval of themselves.  Thus were they bound to God and to each other in a powerful way, that is, by cords of confidence in their own standing with God.  Thenceforth they must truly have believed themselves to be God's "chosen people."


I've been wanting to write about the relationship between Revival and our CONFIDENCE in our own walk with God as well as our confidence in the godliness of our Christian co-workers.  One of the most weakening of falsehoods which have long been propagated by the devil in and through the Apostate Church, has to do with the idea that we ~ not as sinners but as Christians, are yet weak-willed, broken (not as in humble-minded, but as those who still need to be 'fixed'), sin-inclined "nothings."

According to that doctrine of weakness, one would think that:

• there really is nothing more to Christianity than being merely forgiven (there is a popular "Christian" slogan which states: "I'm not perfect, just forgiven");

• repentance amounts to nothing more than expressing regret for one's sins, without any actual change in thinking and behavior (expressed by another popular "Christian" slogan which states: "Christians are sinners saved by grace");

• regeneration is nothing else but being given another chance, a fresh start; and,

• that the indwelling Spirit of Christ is the seal and the security of one's eventual salvation ~ but it is not the real presence of the all-powerful Lord whose Word and will one is duty-bound to obey.

Still another popular "Christian" slogan states: "It's not about me; it's all about Him [Jesus]."   That idea not only is totally unrealistic; but it has the effect to suggest that one's own thoughts and emotions and will and experience are utterly meaningless ~ to Christ, as well as to oneself.  If it's not about you, then why do you pray for anything having to do with yourself, e.g., your health, or your finances, or your career, or your relationships ~ or even your eternal destiny?  If it's not about you, then why should you care whether you may go to Hell, instead of to Heaven?  What that saying really suggests, is, that the way you live your life has nothing to do with your own salvation ~ because, that depends only upon what Jesus did at Calvary.  But that is the devil's gospel, and not God's.

Believe me, it is about you ~ it's about how you will respond to the Word of God, and how God will then respond to you.

The truth is that Christians are not merely forgiven of sins past.  They are indwelt by the Spirit of the living God who is holy ~ whose presence in one's heart and life inclines such an one to hate sin and to resist every temptation to sin.  Repentance is not merely feeling regret for one's sins.  But repentance is actually to renounce and to forsake those sins ~ indeed, to renounce and to cease from all sin.  Repentance is grounded in a real and radical change of heart, which change is characterized as a perpetual willingness to live in obedience to God, rather than to one's own desires.  Regeneration is so completely life-changing that Scripture calls it being "born again" (John 3:3); those who have been born-again, by yielding themselves to be indwelt by the Spirit of Christ, are described in Scripture as being "new creature[s]," that is to say, a wholly new and different kind of being.

Jesus himself said that only those who actually DO the will of God will receive the gift of immortality and eternal life (Matthew 7:21-23; Romans 2:6-7; Acts 5:32; et al).  Yet, there is compelling reason why ~ in this present life ~ we must be able to say, with the Apostle John (who wrote the following words, by the Holy Ghost):

"And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight" (1John 3:22).

John was not ashamed to point to his own life of obedience to God, as being the basis for his ability to receive from God answers to his prayers.  Does such an idea in any way diminish, much less negate, the necessity of Christ to our salvation, or the honor that is due unto Him as Lord and Savior?  Absolutely not.  For, to enable our "conversion" ~ from being rebellious sinners to become obedient saints ~ is the very reason why Christ suffered and died and rose again!  Thus, to make our obedience to God the basis for answered prayer, only serves to honor and to glorify the suffering of Christ.  Sin killed the Lamb of God (who was "made to be sin for us"); whereas, righteousness ~ his own sinlessness ~ is why God raised Him from the dead.  Nothing could be clearer than that, to demonstrate the holiness of God.

It is not only possible to live in faithful obedience to the will of God's Spirit and to His commandments in Scripture.  Obedience to God is imperative; it is not an option.  Obedience to God is identified, in Scripture, as constituting "the whole duty of man" (Ecclesiastes 12:13).  Obedience to God is rewarded by God in many ways, not the least of which is that God will hear and answer the prayers of those who will obey Him.  Whereas, disobedience to God results in separation from God ~ which the Bible calls "death."  God will not "hear," He will not receive the prayers of those who disobey Him (Psalm 66:18).  In fact, the Bible says that the prayers of sinners are greatly offensive (an "abomination") to God (Proverbs 15:8; 28:9).

I keep saying that if we want to receive God's Spirit in Revival power, we must get back to the truth of the Bible.  The mind of Christ is revealed and described ~ and communicated ~ in and through the Bible.  We must be willing not only to question, but utterly to reject, every idea and every slogan which in any way compromises or weakens our understanding of the truth of God.  Contemporary culture in America is apostate thru-and-thru.  There is NO knowledge of God in the culture at large.  Every vestige of erstwhile Christian America has been swept clean away.  What does that say about the condition of America's churches?  I don't mean to continually beat up the churches, as it were.  But the truth is what it is.  And I for one am desperate for Revival.  And the Apostasy is not rooted in the unsaved world; its roots are in the Church!

The people of ancient Nineveh (as discussed in the book of Jonah) were disobedient to God.  And yet they were unaware that they had provoked the LORD to wrath.  The Bible says that they didn't know their right hand from their left ~ that is to say, they had no Light to guide them concerning morality.  Is that not the case today, in American culture?  It has gotten to the point that even such outlandish conduct as homosexuality is seldom discussed, much less is that openly opposed in the churches.

Obedience produces confidence in one's own standing before God.  Such confidence in one's own worthiness is necessary in order to exercise faith to receive the promises of God.  Most Christians in America, however, have been stripped of their ability to enjoy any such confidence as that; because, they have been seduced to believe a watered-down, pseudo-gospel: one which seems to make much of God's grace while it makes little of God's holiness.  But such is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

How long will you continue to give heed to the deceitful ideas of an Apostate Church?  Return unto the Lord, and He will return unto you.  Break up your fallow ground ~ the hardness of your own heart: "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you" (Hosea 10:12).

When that we are able to walk before the Lord in that kind of confidence which John described ~ so that "whatever we ask, we receive" from God: then ~ as Jonathan Goforth testified, we can have Revival "when we will, and where we will."

We will also then be able to trust one another in the Lord, so that we can work together with all confidence, in the bonds of a holy Covenant and Communion.  How, else, can we have Revival?  Let us therefore no longer be ashamed to boldly declare that we must be ~ and that we can be ~ obedient to God.  If we truly live in Christ, and He in us, then we do have the ability to walk with God in truth.  Let us never give up that high privilege, which cost Christ his life to purchase unto us.